Having determined from classical guitar construction that the neck can be integral with the neck-block, I set about shaping the neck into its final form.

I began by chiseling the basic form of the heel, then taking the corners off the neck shaft and using a wood rasp and files to form the head junction and basic heel shapes. Then I used the luthiers mini thumb planes to shape the neck to its final form. The orange rubber mat is a cheap non-slip mat from a kitchenware store – it makes a great non-slip surface on which to work timber.

I drew around a 20c (Australian) coin to get the curves for the head decoration and cut that out on the hobby band-saw and smoothed it with the drill-mounted ‘Wasp’ belt sander.

Then I smoothed the heel curve with the same belt sander and hand finished sanding using 600 grit, then 1500 grit to get a smooth talc-like finish.

After roughing out the neck, I set to work with a plane and scraper to smooth out the head part of the neck. This is quite time consuming, so progress this week has been fairly slow – but it is definite progress.

To give some idea of the current status, this is the neck so far with the fretboard placed (not yet attached) in position

And to provide some context, this photo shows the relationship of the components

After jointing the timber for the back, the next thing was to settle on a design. I wanted to design a shape that will make best use of the timber while retaining a compact shape. I started with an outline of a spoon-back mandolin, and then decided that it needed more body at the neck end.

My initial sketch was done straight on the timber

I used a hole saw to open the sound hole, and then used a wider hole saw to cut an annular groove for the sound hole decoration.

After toying with the notion of purfling, I decided on a different approach – I had earlier seen some fine copper powder and felt that would be a more creative approach. The copper is mixed with PVA and brushed into the groove.

It looks messy, but remember it is going to be sanded back, removing the surface copper, and preparing it to be varnished in place.

I know little of mandolin making, so I was wary of taking the thickness too low. I thicknessed the birdseye maple down to 4mm, and carefully sanded further down to almost half that – about 2.5mm.